Gov. Ron DeSantis made official this week what had been an open secret in Tallahassee for months: He’s sitting out the decisive race to determine who will build off of his eight-year legacy..
“I’m not involved in any Primaries,” the Governor told reporters Thursday in Lehigh Acres, formally closing the door on endorsing anyone in the Republican race to succeed him. He left himself an out, saying he’d reconsider if a candidate proved they had what it takes. But with a little over a week until the Primary, that’s a near impossibility.
Most awkwardly, the field includes his own Lieutenant Governor. Jay Collins has spent his entire campaign leaning on his ties to DeSantis, banking on the idea that being handpicked for the state’s No. 2 job would translate into real support once he ran for the top one.
DeSantis this week found something to say about multiple other candidates in the race this week except Collins. DeSantis noted, not entirely as a compliment, that Donalds — a candidate he has previously said stayed out of the fray during the state’s biggest political battles — has nonetheless outraised the rest of the field combined.
DeSantis also walked back his earlier dig at Paul Renner’s decision to run, saying it was never about doubting Renner’s ability to do the job well — Renner’s policy record, he argued, was never in question, it just wasn’t enough on its own to win a statewide race. Collins got nothing, good or bad, from his own boss.
DeSantis framed the whole exercise as a matter of cold math rather than personal loyalty. Winning a statewide race in Florida, he argued, comes down almost entirely to name recognition, and name recognition comes down almost entirely to money. By that measure, Donalds is running away with it, with more than $100 million banked.
It’s a strange note for a Governor to end his tenure on. DeSantis spent years building a national brand as the guy other Republicans wanted an endorsement from. Now, with his own second term winding down and his own Lieutenant Governor on the ballot to replace him, he’s the one standing on the sideline, handing out backhanded compliments to everyone but the person he chose to stand beside him.
Now, it’s on to our weekly game of winners and losers.
Winners
Honorable mention: Shevrin Jones. A new survey from St. Pete Polls, conducted on behalf of Florida Politics, has Jones leading the Democratic field for Florida’s 24th Congressional District with 33% support, well ahead of Miami-Dade Commission Chair Oliver Gilbert at 23% and lawyer Kendrick Meek Jr. at 17.5%. That’s a full reversal from the same pollster’s July numbers, which had Gilbert on top 27% to 24% with Meek still in single digits.
Jones picked up roughly 9 points in a month while Gilbert slipped, and the shift shows up in nearly every demographic slice of the poll — he topped every single age group and won comfortably among Black voters, who accounted for roughly three-quarters of the sample.
The race is far from settled, though. More than a quarter of likely voters still hadn’t picked a candidate, and among the roughly 3 in 10 respondents who’d already cast a ballot, Gilbert actually narrowed the gap, buoyed by older voters who tend to vote earliest.
Gilbert’s also fending off outside spending: His campaign says a crypto-industry-funded group called Protect Progress has poured close to $1 million into ads against him, and he’s framed it as retaliation from Donald Trump-aligned donors.
Jones also pulled in several notable endorsements. State Sen. Carlos Guillermo Smith and state Rep. Anna Eskamani went first. Two days later, 16 more state lawmakers piled on, including Senate Democratic Leader Lori Berman and Leader-designate Tracie Davis.
None of that guarantees Jones the seat outright. Gilbert has real institutional support and money of his own working against him from outside groups, and more than a quarter of the electorate is still up for grabs. But with the Primary bearing down fast, Jones is the candidate with the wind at his back.
Almost (but not quite) the biggest winner: James Uthmeier. This week, a divided 11th Circuit Court of Appeals — sitting as a full en banc panel — sided with Florida 8-5, upholding the Protection of Children Act, the law barring minors from sexually explicit “adult live performances” that DeSantis signed back in 2023 and that the Attorney General’s Office has been defending in court.
The case traced back to Hamburger Mary’s, an Orlando-area restaurant known for its drag shows, which sued within weeks of the law taking effect and won an early injunction from a federal district Judge who called the statute an attempt to silence drag performers specifically. A three-Judge panel of the 11th Circuit initially agreed with that reading, but the full court took up the case for a second look and came out the other way, finding Hamburger Mary’s had failed to show it was likely to win its First and 14th Amendment claims.
“The Act is consistent with a legislative intent to target drag shows that are obscene for children,” one Judge noted, rejecting the argument that lawmakers meant to sweep in drag performances broadly. With that, the court cleared away the last of the injunction and returned the case to the lower court for further proceedings.
Uthmeier’s Office had carried the case through the appeal, with Solicitor General Dave Dewhirst arguing it before the full court. Uthmeier called it a “huge victory for our team.”
Hamburger Mary’s isn’t necessarily done fighting — a petition to the nation’s highest court is still on the table. But for now, three years of litigation has landed with Uthmeier’s Office notching exactly the ruling it wanted.
The biggest winner: Jeff Brandes and Co. Former state Sen. Brandes and others who sued over Amendment 3’s ballot language just earned a significant win in the courts.
Leon County Circuit Judge David Frank ruled that the state can’t put Amendment 3 in front of voters with its current title and summary intact, ordering Uthmeier back to the drawing board.
Frank zeroed in on the proposed title, “Save Our Homes from Excessive Property Taxes,” finding it read more like a campaign slogan than a neutral description of what the amendment actually does. He was just as unsparing about the summary language, which promised voters the amendment would “benefit” them through provisions like “protecting small businesses” — phrasing Frank said glossed over the real question voters are being asked to settle for themselves.
Brandes, who filed the suit alongside other former state and local officials, framed the win in plain terms. “The ballot box is not a place for political advertising,” he said.
The ruling doesn’t knock Amendment 3 off the ballot outright — state law doesn’t allow that — but it does force a rewrite. Uthmeier’s Office has until Aug. 14 to fix the language unless it appeals, a deadline that lands well before county Election Supervisors start printing November ballots. DeSantis said the state won’t fight the ruling.
The stakes behind the fight go beyond legal technicalities. Independent polling has shown Amendment 3 struggling to clear the 60% threshold it needs once voters actually understand what it does — but performing better when they don’t. That gap is exactly what Brandes and his fellow plaintiffs argued the ballot language was designed to paper over, and this week a Judge told the state to stop trying.
Losers
Dishonorable mention: Rachel Vindman. Vindman spent this week watching her own words become a liability in her husband’s Senate campaign.
The trouble traces back to a social media post she wrote attacking an unnamed rival of Democratic Senate candidate Alex Vindman — widely understood to be state Rep. Angie Nixon, his opponent in the Aug. 18 Primary.
Vindman accused the rival of showing up to sparsely attended campaign events just to take personal shots at her husband, then added an unprompted jab about the woman’s appearance, telling her to “buy some professional clothes for the love of everything.”
She never used Nixon’s name, instead writing that she knew the target of the post was reading it and simply wasn’t worth naming. That coyness didn’t stop Democrats from recognizing exactly who she meant, and backlash arrived fast.
State Sen. Lavon Bracy Davis called the remark tone-deaf and out of touch, and critics quickly labeled it an example of misogynoir, the specific blend of racism and sexism often aimed at Black women.
Vindman didn’t back down right away, either. When she deleted the post under pressure, she followed up with a taunt rather than an apology, writing, “Fine. I deleted it. But I proved my point that you’re watching.” Only later did she offer something closer to contrition, saying the comments had been made in poor taste.
The fallout reached the party’s organizational level this week. The Democratic Progressive Caucus of Florida sent an open letter to the Vindman campaign, faulting both Rachel Vindman’s post and a campaign staffer who dismissed the idea of Alex Vindman debating Nixon by suggesting she could debate his wife instead.
The caucus, led by President Matthew Grocholske, didn’t mince words, writing that rhetoric like this “belittles a Black woman candidate, dismisses her as unworthy of direct engagement.”
Alex Vindman has already drawn criticism for declining to debate Nixon directly, and now his own wife has handed Democratic rivals a fresh reason to question the campaign’s judgment just before voters decide the nomination.
Alex Vindman has the money and endorsements to position himself as the Democratic front-runner, and his own campaign rhetoric has largely been focused on November. But this is a needless and inappropriate distraction in a race where Democratic voters will need to be motivated if they wish to flip this Senate seat. Dividing the base is no way of accomplishing that.
Almost (but not quite) the biggest loser: Cory Mills. Mills is already facing intense scrutiny due to multiple scandals swirling around him. This week saw some of his fellow House Republicans endorsing his opponent, a poll with warning signs, and a debate performance that gave his rivals plenty of fresh material.
U.S. Reps. Mike Haridopolos and Anna Paulina Luna became the first Florida members of Congress to openly campaign against Mills’ re-election, throwing their joint support behind challenger Ryan Elijah just hours before the two men shared a debate stage. Their statement praised Elijah as someone who “has spent years as a trusted voice in our community, listening to neighbors.”
Gubernatorial candidate Paul Renner piled on the same day, backing Elijah and declaring flatly that “Cory Mills is a disgrace to the Republican brand.”
New poll numbers gave Mills’ campaign little reason to relax. A St. Pete Polls survey of likely Republican Primary voters had Mills leading Elijah 29.5% to 13.9%, but with 41% of voters still undecided. Our Janelle Irwin Taylor summed up the math bluntly, noting the double-digit lead was “not as wide a margin as incumbents typically enjoy,” leaving Elijah space to swoop in ahead of the Aug. 18 Primary.
Then came the debate, hosted by The Floridian. Elijah used his time to press Mills on whether he was under investigation by the Justice Department. Fellow challenger Michael Don Johnson piled on with accusations of stolen valor and pointed questions about Mills’ alleged ties to Ukraine arms deals.
Not every ally jumped ship. U.S. Rep. Brian Mast, who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee where Mills leads the Oversight and Intelligence subcommittee, backed Mills this week, calling him “a critical member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee” and standing by him as a fellow combat veteran. But for an incumbent who should normally cruise toward re-election, needing reinforcements at all is the real headline.
The biggest loser: James Fishback. Fishback spent this week adding a seven-figure court judgment to his ledger and torching whatever credibility he had left with an unsubstantiated attack on the man beating him by 40 points.
U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer entered a final judgment Tuesday requiring Fishback to cover a bill topping $1.31 million for Greenlight Capital’s legal costs, with post-judgment interest still to be tacked on later.
The ruling formalized an earlier opinion in which Engelmayer trimmed Greenlight’s original $1.9 million ask but made clear Fishback himself was largely to blame for running up the bill, calling his legal arguments “legally and factually meritless.”
The underlying dispute traces back to Fishback’s 2023 departure from the hedge fund, where Greenlight accused him of inventing a “head of macro” title that never existed and quietly lifting confidential portfolio information to launch his own firm, Azoria Capital.
This latest bill stacks on top of a separate $229,000 judgment from January that a federal magistrate ordered him to satisfy by handing over Azoria stock certificates and personal luxury items — a debt Fishback has said outright he won’t pay.
Then came an eye-popping, yet unsubstantiated allegation a mere 12 days before Election Day. Fishback, who is trailing badly in every public poll, told reporters an anonymous “government whistleblower” had confirmed that a federal investigation into U.S. Rep. Cory Mills had quietly expanded to include front-runner Byron Donalds, accusing both men of paying for sex on two occasions in 2024 at a hotel outside Washington.
A Justice Department official shot the claim down almost immediately, telling reporters it was “absolutely false.” The Department reiterated that denial in a broader statement Friday.
“Falsely accusing someone of being under investigation is a dangerous form of weaponization. This claim is not true. Congressman Byron Donalds is not under investigation.”
Donalds’ campaign hit back even harder, with spokesman Gates McGavick saying flatly the campaign wouldn’t be “distracted by this baseless and defamatory sideshow.” Mills, for his part, said he had no knowledge of any such investigation touching Donalds at all.
Rather than close out his long-shot campaign with a final pitch to voters, Fishback spent the week getting slapped down in a courtroom and making claims federal officials immediately rebutted. That’s only a closing argument in that it’s closing the door on whatever relevancy Fishback has remaining.
Ryan Nicol covers news out of South Florida for Florida Politics. Ryan is a native Floridian who attended undergrad at Nova Southeastern University before moving on to law school at Florida State. After graduating with a law degree he moved into the news industry, working in TV News as a writer and producer, along with some freelance writing work. If you’d like to contact him, send an email to [email protected].
Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *
Florida Politics is a statewide, new media platform covering campaigns, elections, government, policy, and lobbying in Florida. This platform and all of its content are owned by Extensive Enterprises Media.
Publisher: Peter Schorsch @PeterSchorschFL
Contributors & reporters: Phil Ammann, Drew Dixon, Roseanne Dunkelberger, Liam Fineout, A.G. Gancarski, Jesse Mendoza, Ryan Nicol, Jacob Ogles, Cole Pepper, Gabrielle Russon, Jesse Scheckner, Janelle Taylor, Drew Wilson, and Mike Wright.
Digital Services Manager: Daniel Dean
Email: [email protected]
Twitter: @PeterSchorschFL
Phone: (727) 642-3162
Address: 204 37th Avenue North #182
St. Petersburg, Florida 33704
© Copyright by Extensive-Enterprises 2026. All rights reserved. STAFF LOGIN
